X-Lab Salon

Tikva works at the intersection of Community Participation and Technological Innovation. She is currently investigating Community User Experience Design- that is how do design for the experience of many. She's currently working on creating online and offline conversation around this subject involving data scientists, startup founders, and anthropologists. Comparing online and hyperlocal communities, Tikva is researching the experience of new members in a new social service, the quality of interactions between members, and ways to enhance participation through the design of community assets. As a technologist Tikva consults with startups and brands, both strategizing and implementing launches and development for online, mobile, community-driven and hyperlocal products.

With her expertise in community and human-centered technologies, she has worked on recent projects for Clay Shirky, Hewlett-Packard, Loreal, Eclectic Method, Hashable, Photojojo and Windowfarms.

Surround Sounds is the first event in Eyebeam’s new X-Lab Salon series, a program of thematic critical discussions taking place around an informal dining table.

Join Eyebeam for Surround Sounds, an evening of art + technology + food + conversation with fellow Jacob Ciocci, and residents Dave Jimison and Tahir Hemphill. Over the course of the evening, guests will be invited to share in a series of edible and aural experiences.

Ciocci, Jimison and Hemphill will present their sound-based work in an informal discussion environment with food and drink. Each of them approach music or sound from very different perspectives, but are linked in their use of technology and aural experience as a way to reinterpret and reinvent the world. Their work provides the inspiration and launching point for an engaging evening around the dining table.

Born in the Lower East Side, New York, Tahir grew up in a house filled with the artistic influences of his grandmother Clora Tee. Her drawings, which combined bible verses and encyclopedia entries, are spiritually resonant and scientifically verified. From a young age and with this as his backdrop, Tahir was groomed to be an engineer, and with that training he entered the arts. This pull between the profound and profane, between art and science informs his process and life.

Tahir holds a Regents Diploma from Brooklyn Technical High School in Electrical Engineering, a B.A. degree in Spanish Language from Morehouse College (Minor in Mathematics) and a M.S. degree in Communications Design from Pratt Institute where he authored and designed the book Visual Alchemy, a treatise on the work and processes of creatives who use traditional advertising techniques to promote subversive anti-consumerist or pro-social campaigns.

Ted Southern is a sculptor, costume maker, and inventor from Brooklyn, New York. For the last 4 years, Ted has been developing a new generation of space suit gloves, in coordination with Nikolay Moiseev, a Russian spacesuit fabricator. In November 2009, Ted and Nik outperformed NASA’s current Phase VI spacesuit gloves, and won second place in NASA's Astronaut Glove Challenge. While at Eyebeam, Ted will be digitally developing the complicated patterns for these gloves, including pressure restraints and the Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, and modeling hard and soft patterns for a new, complete low cost pressure suit.